Typically, we’d expect an actor to get lots of offers after their “big break,” like how “Titanic” made Leonardo DiCaprio an instant A-lister or how “The Wolf of Wall Street” catapulted Margot Robbie’s career.
However, for many actors, a breakout role doesn’t always lead to a major breakthrough in the industry. For others, the well of opportunity may dry up sooner than they expected it to. In both cases, actors can often attribute their lack of job offers to factors like racism, ageism, or typecasting.
Here are 17 actors who opened up about struggling to find a job after their “big break”:
1
After wrapping "Everything Everywhere All At Once," Ke Huy Quan "could not land a single job, not even one callback." He also lost his health insurance after not booking any roles in 2021.
Allyson Riggs /© A24 / Courtesy Everett Collection
2
Nearly four decades into her career, Michelle Yeoh found that "as you get older, the roles get smaller" and "you start getting relegated to the side more and more."
A24 / Courtesy Everett Collection
3
After her Oscar-winning performance in "West Side Story," Rita Moreno felt that "Hollywood really took a break from [her]." She turned down any stereotypical roles she was offered, and the fact that she wasn't getting more substantial parts "absolutely broke [her] heart."
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4
Mena Massoud beat 2,000 other actors for the leading role in "Aladdin" (2019), which made $1 billion at the box office. Afterwards, months later, he hadn't "had a single audition since 'Aladdin' came out."
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5
For Bella Thorne, it was "really hard to get a job" after her Disney Channel series "Shake It Up" ended in 2013. Casting directors didn't want to see her "because they were like, 'She's a Disney actress.'"
Bruce Birmelin / © Disney Channel / Courtesy: Everett Collection
6
After winning an Academy Award for "Monster's Ball" in 2002 (which made her the first and, so far, only Black actor to win Best Actress), Halle Berry didn't receive offers in a way her white peers might, and she often had to take certain parts in order to provide for her children.
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7
Aidy Bryant rose to prominence as a cast member on "Saturday Night Live," but, outside of the show, she was only offered roles that portrayed fat characters offensively, such as "an ugly girl [who becomes a male character's] prison wife."
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8
When "The Kissing Booth" dropped on Netflix, Jacob Elordi practically became famous overnight. Afterwards, he moved to LA, but he "wasn’t booking jobs" and ended up living in his car for a time.
Netflix / Courtesy Everett Collection
9
After playing Alice Cullen in the "Twilight" franchise, Ashley Greene had moments of saying to herself, "Why is this so hard?" because "you come off a high like 'Twilight' and then you get dropped back down to reality."
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10
Brenda Song rose to fame as London Tipton on the Disney Channel series "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody" and "The Suite Life on Deck." Afterwards, she struggled to get roles that were written for Asian actors. When she tried to get an audition for "Crazy Rich Asians," the production refused because "[her] image was basically not Asian enough."
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11
For Jeff Cohen, who played Chunk in "The Goonies," puberty was "a career ender" because he was "transforming from Chunk to hunk, and [he] couldn't get roles any more."
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12
Fresh on the heels of her "Jurassic Park" success, Laura Dern guest-starred on "Ellen" as the titular character's love interest in her coming out episode. Due to anti-gay backlash, Laura didn't book anymore work for a year.
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13
At 38, Liv Tyler felt like "a sort of second-class citizen" in Hollywood because the only roles for women her age were "usually the wife or the girlfriend."
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14
Early in her career, Jessica Alba struggled to find roles because casting directors "couldn't figure out [her] ethnicity." She had to try out for "exotic" roles because "they were like, 'You're not Latin enough to play a Latina, and you're not Caucasian enough to play the leading lady, so you're going to be the 'exotic' one.' Whatever that was."
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15
After a successful run in her teens and 20s, Julia Stiles "was feeling like nobody knew what to do with [her]" and "was sort of jumping from job to job that [she] wasn't really connected to, and worried about where [her] career was going."
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16
Though Vanessa Hudgens was thankful for "High School Musical," it "closed people's minds up as to which characters [she] could portray," and, for a while, she was "kind of struggling and fighting for these roles that [she] just desperately wanted."
Fred Hayes / © Disney Channel / Courtesy: Everett Collection
17
And finally, Chris Owen became well-known for his role as Chuck Sherman in "American Pie." However, he later worked as a server in a sushi restaurant because "life doesn't always go the way you planned."
Universal / courtesy Everett Collection